The drilling industry has devoted considerable effort to the improvement of bearings for roller cutter drill bits. To have a sufficiently long drilling life to be commercially useful, the bearing should have a minimum of friction and wear. Recently materials called maraging steels have been developed which have unique properties which make them candidates as bearing materials. Such materials have a chemistry which allows them to be thermally processed without a carbon controlled atmosphere. These maraging steels have minimal size change as a result of heat treating to full hardness. These steels have tensile strengths in the range from 150,000 psi to 400,000 psi with greater toughness than other steels and can achieve a hardness of Rockwell C 55. One disadvantage of using such maraging steels as a bearing member is that they tend to gall.